Mario Berta and Its company FlySpaces, featured in INC South East Asia.

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This Start-up Makes Discovering Co-working Spaces Seamless

Dubbed as the Airbnb of office spaces, FlySpaces functions as a digital marketing platform connecting entrepreneurs and start-ups to co-working spaces across Southeast Asia

BY JARED CARL MILLAN – 25 JUL 2017

Mario Berta, CEO of FlySpaces

With millennials driving the workforce, the ever growing demand for unconventional office set-ups is on an upward swing. And it is one of the driving forces behind the sudden rise and popularity of co-working spaces, considered as the hip and trendy successors to the uptight and boxed-in office culture that dominated the workforce in the past decades.

In India it’s been projected that the growth of co-working space leasing will double within the year, says an India Times report. Meanwhile, Shanghai-based Naked Hub merged with Singapore’s JustCo to build an empire; their aim is to create Asia’s number 1 co-working space, again to cater to this increasing demand, according to South China Morning Post.

So how does one stand out in this thriving market?

Not by competing against other players in a field that is becoming increasingly saturated, but by working with them and offering a service unlike any other—a mutually beneficial arrangement for everyone involved.

Such is the arrangement FlySpaces capitalizes on.

Dubbed as the Airbnb of office spaces, FlySpaces functions as a digital marketing platform; it connects entrepreneurs and start-ups to co-working spaces across Southeast Asia.

“Everybody talks about co-working spaces, but there is not a ‘market place’ yet where everybody can share the offices and also smaller co-working operators can brand themselves,” says Mario Berta, CEO and founder of FlySpaces. “We want to make discovery and booking of office spaces easier and seamless.”

Berta says the inspiration for the company stemmed from experiencing firsthand the many struggles in trying to find spaces for work. “I was in Rocket Internet for 3 years and I had to rent lots of offices,” he shares. “It was just a pain to look for office space, as a start-up, we were trying not to be locked up for 3 years’ contract and give deposits. I wanted to create a marketplace for flexible office space.”

Aside from payroll, Berta adds, companies incur the most expense on office rentals. Berta wants to further minimize these costs by pushing entrepreneurs and start-ups toward leasing spaces instead.

FlySpaces is in a convenient position wherein it tries not to outdo other co-working spaces but instead to enhance their services and put them on the map, making the process of renting a space fuss-free.

Asked about his vision for the company, Berta says that he aspires to grow the FlySpaces into a 1-billion company. “I am obsessed with a 1-billion-dollar company so this is where I am aiming. Maybe FlySpaces is not a 1 Billion but it is an ‘easy’ 100 Million ‘IPOable’ company,” he says.

Thus far, FlySpaces serves more than 500 customers, has more than 900 offices around Asia for a total of 400,000 sqm of flexible office space on the platform.

Berta admits to finding satisfaction in the work that he does.

“90% of my time is spent not customer facing but employees facing, making sure we hire, train, and manage the right people and occasionally also fire when is needed,” he says. “We have seven nationalities represented in our company with just 21 employees now. But my biggest satisfaction is seeing how the team works well together even if I am not around, there is a common purpose of making it happen.”